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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
March 1926
“Salt” or “ Leaven” ? f Dr. John Murdoch Maclnnis Dran of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles,. California
and she is Just waiting here for Him who is to take her to be with Himself. Jesus Christ knows what He is doing and He told the Father before He left here that He did not ask that the Church should be taken out of the world at present but that it might be kept from the evil that is in the world, and He must have had a very definite purpose for leaving the representatives of the Church from generation to gen eration in the world, and when that purpose is served He will undoubtedly take them to be with Himself. As long as we are in the will of Ood and attending to the work that He has given to us, our place is right here in the. world, and from these words we would gather Jesus Christ’s pur pose for leaving the Church in the world at the present time. It is the salt of the earth, and with all its faults and short comings no one can honestly study the history of the last two thousand years without recognizing l,he extent to which this is true; and, notwithstanding its shortcomings, if its influence were to be removed from our communities and nations today, men would speedily find what a tremen dously conserving power it is. Not only that but they would also discover that with all that is being said regarding its "obscurantism” and “ reac tionary tendencies,” this world would be a very dark and gloomy place apart from the light that it radiates through the grace and power of God. Hence the greatest oppor tunity open to any group of people in the world Is open to the Church through what it can be in the way of conserving influence, and the creator of new tastes and desires in the life of the world. This privilege is realized not through what we have to say, but through what the grace of God makes us. We are the salt and we are salt because of what we dre made by the grace of God. A Challenge to Onr Sense o f Responsibility This suggests our second thought, namely— that these words are a challenge to a sense of responsibility. God has entrusted to His own people the responsibility of being the conservers of the higher things and, the creator of the truer tastes through the living of the Christ life and win ning men to be His disciples and teaching them to observe the things that He has commanded. In other words, the health and the light of the world are practically entrusted by God to His own people. We often find fault with the conditions which prevail, and speak of the awful corrup tion and evil tendencies and muddled thinking of our day. We realize that the whole responsibility does not rest with the Church but on the other hand does not a large share of that responsibility rest with us? r If things are bad, is not some of the reason to be found in the fact that the Church, which is the salt, is losing its savor and is not living its life in the way that it should; and if the thinking of men is as darkened and muddled, as we say it is, is not a large part of the reason to be found in the
|NMatthew 5:13-20 we have one of the most chal- UnglngTîilèffiSBT! in all the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is a challenge to a sense of privilege and opportunity, to a sense of responsibility and sacred obligation, and, finally, to confidence and a radiant hope regarding the final issues of the Christian ideal. First, a challenge to privilege and opportunity. This challenge is marked by the two-fold declaration: “ Ye are the salt of the earth"; “ Ye are the light of the world." Nothing could seem more incongruous and impossible at the time the words were first uttered. They were spoken to a little group of humble and comparatively unknown men whose influence did not extend outside of the bounds of that little strip of land on 'the shores of the Mediterranean, yet Jesus Christ in all seriousness sdid to them, “ Ye are the salt of the earth," “ Ye are the light of the world," that is, "ye are the conserving, sweetening influence that is to keep the world from corrupting, and to give it a new flavor through the influence and power of a new life. Ye are the medium through which the light is to guide men in the midst of the gross darkness and materialism which enshrouds the think ing of the world,”— and, impossible as these words may seem, the historical fact is that they have been literally ful filled. That little group became the salt to conserve the highest things in the life of the world and it gave a new flavor to the life of histqry, and it has created desires for higher and truer things. All historians practically recognize that something hap pened in the creation of the Church that has fundamentally and vitally affected the life of the world in a constructive way. Not only that, but all genuine development in think ing and life since that day has followed the light of the Christian religion which was represented by that little group. In speaking to these men Jesus Christ marked the privilege and opportunity of the Church in all ages. The privilege of the people of Ood is to be the salt that conserves the highest things possible to life, and creates a new flavor and new desires for real and abiding things. It represents a power that recreates men so that they have new tastes which lead them to seek things which are con trary to the things followed after by the men and the women of the world. In order to do this, the salt must be put into the mass that it is to affect, and the light must be put where it may be seen of men; therefore Christ has placed the Church in the world in contact with its life and its interest in order that it may touch it and make disciples of all nations and teach through its life and witness all things whatsoever Jesus Christ has commanded. Someone has said in a little tract published some time ago, in speaking of the world being upside down, that “ the Church is out of place.” The writer of the tract contends that the place of the Church is in heaven with her Lord
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